The Role Identity Plays In Regulating Emotions

Through social connection and introspection, we develop an identity that balances authenticity with the need to fit in coherently with the group.

Identity cannot be seen as an arbitrary construct that you can impose on the world. Rather, it is a complex negotiation between your internal landscape and the external world. And that's no easy task.

The Self and Others

Think about what happens when you try to express your identity in the world. If it works, you get what you want and need. But if it doesn't work, you are faced with a not insignificant choice: reshape your identity or try to reshape the world.

The reality is that we are all engaged in a process of adapting the world to our desires. But there are fundamental limits to how far we can go before this process turns against us. Nature follows its own rules, as do other people who have their own trajectories, their own goals and their own identities that they are trying to manifest.

You may be tempted to think that the solution is to forge ahead regardless of these obstacles. But that's dangerous, because your identity does not develop in isolation: it emerges during a complex process of social development that begins in childhood. You start out as an egocentric being, and through socialisation you begin to understand how to function as part of a larger social organism.

The authenticity dilemma

This is what people often get wrong: they confuse the inability to follow social rules with authenticity. In reality, you have to understand the social rules before you can break them.

The current cultural discourse on self-defined identity is painfully inadequate. It's like trying to play a game where everyone makes up the rules as they go along. The result is not freedom but confusion. Your identity is not fixed, but it’s not just what you say it is either.

Indeed, human beings need a degree of predictability in order to function. When our actions don't produce the expected results, our bodies literally prepare for emergency action. It's a physiological response deeply rooted in our nature: if you're lost in the woods at night, your body doesn't know what specific threat it might face, so it prepares for every eventuality.

This state of readiness is extremely costly in terms of energy and psychological resources. That's why we naturally gravitate towards environments where our actions produce predictable results, and we seek out people who share our cultural assumptions, our way of being in the world.

Even those who consider themselves temperamentally progressive or liberal cannot escape this fundamental truth: we are inherently conservative creatures (the word 'conservative' comes from the Latin conservator, 'savior'). The world is chaotic enough without us deliberately adding to that chaos through our social interactions. It's not just a matter of comfort or preference, it's a matter of survival.

Functional identity

But what's really fascinating is that your functional identity serves as a sophisticated emotional regulation system. When it's working properly, it helps you navigate the world in a way that achieves your goals while minimizing the physiological stress of uncertainty. It's like a map that helps you stay close enough to the metaphorical campfire while allowing you to explore the surrounding darkness.

So negotiating identity is not just about self-expression: it's about finding the happy medium between order and chaos, between individual authenticity and social functionality. You need enough order to maintain psychological stability, but also enough flexibility to grow and adapt. You need enough social conformity to function within your culture, but enough individuality to contribute something unique and meaningful.

Negotiating your identity means knowing what you want and setting healthy boundaries.

This is no easy task. We need to find the right balance between respect for the social structures that have evolved over millennia of human development and the courage to change them where necessary. This requires us to recognize both our need for predictability and our capacity for transformation.

The way forward is neither a revolutionary rejection of all existing structures, nor blind conformity to them. Rather, it involves a thoughtful and careful negotiation of our identity within the complex web of natural and social realities that surround us.

In this way we develop an identity that is both authentic and functional, enabling us to regulate our emotions effectively while pursuing meaningful personal growth and development.

This is a never-ending process. We need to engage in it consciously and continuously throughout our lives.

Ultimately, your identity is not fixed and limited to who you think you are. A functional identity is about effectively manifesting that sense of self in the world while maintaining psychological stability and coherent social functioning.